The first six weeks are sometimes called the fourth trimester, on the reasonable grounds that a newborn is not yet entirely finished arriving. They sleep in short unpredictable stretches, they cannot regulate their own temperature well, and they have no interest whatsoever in how they look.
Dressing them, in this period, is a practical matter rather than an aesthetic one. It gets easier — and rather more fun — soon enough.
One layer more than you are wearing
The rule that holds through the whole of the first year: a baby is comfortable in roughly one more layer than an adult needs in the same room.
If you are in a jumper, the baby wants a bodysuit and a sleepsuit. If you are in short sleeves, a bodysuit alone will do. The check is the back of the neck or the chest — warm and dry is right. Hands and feet run cool on newborns and are a poor guide; cold fingers on a baby whose chest is warm mean nothing at all.
Keep it to two pieces
A bodysuit and a sleepsuit will cover almost every hour of these weeks, day and night. There is no meaningful distinction between daywear and nightwear yet, because there is no meaningful distinction between day and night.
Buttons at the back, stiff waistbands, anything that must be pulled over the head, anything that needs the baby to be lifted and turned — none of it earns its place. The whole drawer should be things that open flat.
Hats, mittens and the truth about both
A newborn loses a meaningful amount of heat through the head, and a soft cotton bonnet is genuinely useful outdoors and in a cool room. Indoors, in a warm house, it is not needed and can quietly overheat a sleeping baby — so it comes off inside.
Mittens are for the baby's own fingernails, which are sharp and entirely beyond their control for the first month or two. Cotton scratch mittens do a real job. Both should be soft enough that you would happily hold them against your own face, which is a better test than any label.
Washing, and why everything gets washed
Wash everything before the first wear, and wash it in something non-biological and unscented. A newborn's skin is around a fifth the thickness of an adult's and reacts to residue that an adult would never notice.
You will be washing constantly. This is the argument for cotton that survives it: ours is 100% organic Egyptian cotton — the softest cotton in the world — long-staple, so it holds its shape and gets softer with each wash rather than rougher. It is GOTS certified, which means the standard applies to the dyes and the finishing too, not only to the fibre.
What actually helps
Have more bodysuits than you think you need and fewer outfits. Keep a full change of clothes in the changing bag and another in the car. Put the next size up at the back of the drawer rather than in the loft.
And accept that for these few weeks a baby will spend most of their life in two soft cotton layers, photographed constantly and dressed hardly at all. It is the correct approach, and it does not last nearly as long as it feels at the time.
